


I Miss You, I'm Sorry

by EmberandShadow



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Day Four, M/M, Regret, nygmobblepot week, sad Oswald
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-01 05:24:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12149532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmberandShadow/pseuds/EmberandShadow
Summary: Nygmobblepot Week- Day Four: RegretThere’s a part of Oswald’s heart that whispers to him that they’re soulmates, that nothing could break them apart because they’re meant to be together. Oswald initially pushes that feeling down but then he thinks about it again- soulmate doesn’t have to mean romantically.





	I Miss You, I'm Sorry

Oswald drags the man on his arm into his office in a hurry. He vaguely acknowledges that he has forgotten the man’s name minutes into their conversation. It doesn’t really matter, he’s not going to see or talk to him again.

There’s a voice in the back of his head that tries to insist that he shouldn’t be doing this, that this is the fourth time in a week he’s dragged some guy into his office purely because he looked vaguely like Ed.

The lookalike has soft hands, Oswald gives him that, but he’s not the best kisser in the world and he’s trying too hard. Oswald loses interest not too long after they’ve begun and then he’s pulling away. The lookalike looks at him in confusion, and Oswald just sighs.

“Something wrong?” The man asks.

“Yes,” Oswald mumbles under his breath before saying louder, “No, of course not. I’m sorry, I have to go.”

Oswald walks out of his office, not worrying about the lookalike, and he heads back downstairs.

***

It’s quiet. And it’s late. Oswald can feel the tiredness seeping through his bones but he still has some work to finish up here. He glances over at the popsicle in the middle of his club and he takes a moment to just look at Ed. His thoughts begin to drift. Was it a mistake? Was there a different outcome that they could have come to? He shakes his head. It’s no use thinking about what if’s. He gets back to work.

 

He shuts his books with a sigh, cleans up the rest of the papers he was working on, and grabs his coat. He stops halfway to the exit when he’s once again distracted by the centerpiece in the middle of his club. He looks at it for several moments, open his mouth, and then hesitates. He closes his mouth. Talking to the frozen body of Ed would be stupid, pathetic, and definitely not something he was going to do.

He presses his hand against the glass, lets the cold seep into his fingers. There’s a strange feeling that starts in his stomach and works it’s way upward, wrapping around every vein, until it gets to his heart and grips it tight. He can’t tie a word to the feeling- guilt? Regret?- whatever it is, he doesn’t like it. His hand slips from the ice and he walks out of the club.

***

“You can’t just keep kissing guys and pretending that it’s him.” Ivy says to him as he nurses a glass of scotch and stares at the fire.

“I would like to disagree.” Oswald replies.

“This isn’t healthy.” She points out, abandoning her plants to stand in front of him, “You love him.”

“Loved. And what does it matter anyway? What’s done is done.” He knocks back the rest of his drink and stares at the ice at the bottom of the glass.

“We could always unfreeze him.” Ivy points out.

“Could we now? Yes that seems like a _lovely_ idea! Unfreeze him so that he can come and get his revenge on me, so he can try and kill me again.” He glares at her.

“You don’t know that he would do that.” She crosses her arms.

“I know him. The second he gets out of that ice he’s coming straight for me.” He looks away, “ _If_ he gets out of that ice.”

“Come on, you know you two could work it out.”

“I’m not so sure about that. We’ve been trying to kill each other for months.”

“Things change, it wouldn’t hurt to try.” She looks at him with hope in her eyes. And Oswald knows she’s just trying to be helpful, just looking out for him. But he knows Ed better than anyone, and he knows what would happen if he unfroze him.

He stands, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He heads upstairs, thinking Ivy’s words over in his mind.

***

Several days later he finds himself standing in front of the frozen centerpiece that is Edward Nygma, once again. He finds himself wondering if Ivy could be right, if she could actually be thinking about this in a logical way. Could they work it out? What would happen if he _did_ let Ed out? In his mind Oswald thinks about the worst case scenario; he doesn’t even _entertain_ the thought that it could go any way other than horrible. But he wonders about it now. He wonders if the ice could have changed Ed in some way, or at least made him see that they didn’t have to fight anymore.

Because Oswald is tired.

He can feel it in his bones and in his heart and in his soul. He’s tired of this centerpiece in the middle of his club, he’s tired of seeing Ed like this, he’s tired of being the winner. At this moment in time he just wants his best friend back. It’s gone beyond love, past obsession, and landed right back at friendship. Oswald misses Ed, he misses how they’d talk, how they could connect intellectually.

Maybe he _should_ let him out of the ice.

But then his mind is going back to that worst case scenario, he’s thinking about how Ed will react when he gets out, he’s thinking that Nygma could hold only hate in his heart for him. He’s so afraid that Ed would come after him. Because that’s how his mind works; he sees the danger and he calculates how to work around it, and he doesn’t let it bite him in the ass.

And Edward Nygma is definitely dangerous. He’d proven himself as such. So he can’t help but repeat the narrative of an angry Ed getting out of the ice and immediately trying to kill him. Oswald can’t push that out of his mind no matter how much he wants to.

_“You know you two could work it out.”_

Could they? Is that even possible at this point? Oswald turns that idea over in his head about a million times. They’d had moments of estrangement before, never to this degree, but they had their moments. And they’d found their way back to each other. There’s a part of Oswald’s heart that whispers to him that they’re soulmates, that nothing could break them apart because they’re meant to be together. Oswald initially pushes that feeling down but then he thinks about it again- soulmate doesn’t have to mean romantically. Maybe they are destined to be together.

The first time they truly met Ed had asked him if he believed in fate.

Thinking on it now, Oswald wonders if Ed was on to something. Fate had brought them together, had put Ed in that forest and brought Ed to him in a moment of incredible vulnerability. Destiny had given Ed to Oswald, had written his name all over the walls of his world. They had been thrown together seemingly by chance but they worked so well together that maybe it wasn’t chance at all, maybe it was meant to be.

Oswald shakes his head, wonders what’s gotten into him, contemplates that feeling in his heart. He takes a steadying breath, trying to decide what to do. If he lets Ed out of the ice, sure there’s a chance he could die, but Oswald wonders if that would be favorable to this horrid existence he’s succumbed to. He can’t spend the rest of his life dragging lookalikes into his office just to feel a little spark of anything. He can’t keep using them as a replacement for Ed. One, because they just aren’t good enough, and two; because if he’s honest with himself, he really does miss Ed.

And he regrets his decision of freezing him in the first place.

He walks up onto the little stage on which Ed’s ice cage is perched. He walks up so he’s almost eye to eye with Ed- would be eye to eye if he weren’t shorter than the man. And he puts a hand on the ice, tries to feel the connection between them through the block of frozen water between them.

He makes the decision then. And he hopes that it’s the right one.

Because he can’t keep living with this regret.


End file.
